Always a tremendous letter writer, Sister Virginia McMonagle wrote friends to let them know she was leaving her job as director of constituent relations at the University of San Diego to help start an orphanage in Haiti. In her notes, she wrote, “One never knows what God has up His divine sleeve. This time ’tis myself!”

From the moment she arrived in Port-au-Prince in early 1988 to establish the mission of NPH Haiti with the Rev. William Wasson, the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic nun declared herself “totally hooked.” She developed educational programs and was particularly devoted to the sickest children, often arranging for them to come to San Diego to receive medical care at Rady Children’s Hospital. Ultimately, she spent six months of the year at USD and six months in Haiti, a schedule that lasted into the 1990s.

Sister McMonagle died after a brief illness on Easter Sunday at Oakwood Retirement Center in Atherton. She was 91.

“She was generous and fun-loving, a woman of deep faith and frequent prayer, always optimistic,” said the Rev. Richard Frechette from the mission in Haiti. “She was a committed friend to the poor, and also had many lifelong friendships with people with phenomenal resources.

“Sister knew how to connect the dots, get things done, and have fun in the process. Virginia was an enormous gift to all of us.”

Sister McMonagle first came to San Diego County in 1957 when she was assigned to be mistress general for the Academy of the Sacred Heart in El Cajon. The school was so new that students were expected to bring their own camp stools to furnish the empty classrooms.

“She was very charismatic, the students just loved her,” said Sister Virginia Rodee, a Sacred Heart teacher in 1961. “She was always intent that the girls have fun.

“Sister McMonagle used to love to spring a congé, like a free day, on them. Students would be ready to go to class, in uniform with their books, and she would announce this surprise congé with wonderful food and fun games.”

Betsy Manchester, one of Sister McMonagle’s first pupils at the El Cajon school, forged a lifelong friendship with the nun, calling her a “beautiful mentor.”

“She was one of those earth angels,” Manchester said.

Virginia Rose McMonagle was born Aug. 9, 1921, in Roslyn, Wash., the eldest of three to George and Rose Tierney McMonagle. She attended the Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Seattle, where she first met the Society of the Sacred Heart.

While at the San Francisco College for Women, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, she felt the call to religious life. On Aug. 24, 1940, she entered the Society of the Sacred Heart at Kenwood, Albany, N.Y., and pronounced her first vows on May 1, 1943.

Her first job was at Forest Ridge, where she was a teacher, assistant principal and head of the boarding school.

After her El Cajon directorship, she returned to Forest Ridge in 1963 as principal, responsible for overseeing the school’s move from Seattle to Bellevue, Wash. Proving to be an accomplished fundraiser, she raised the money for 129 acres and the buildings.